Shameless

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  “Which is?”

  “Any number of things,” he said. “Just be glad I came after you, my girl. You would have been in a sad case if I hadn’t.”

  “Yes, I am aware of that, and I thank you most sincerely, but—”

  “So, miss and yer worship, what’s to do now?” Mary called to them. Breaking off, Beth glanced her way. Mary was perched with Peg and Alyce on a clump of nearby rocks. All three were busy wringing out their soaked skirts. Jane and Nan, fixed on more distant rocks, were doing the same. Dolly stood near them, combing her fingers through her wet hair.

  “We take what remains of the night to rest, and then we walk out.” Neil raised his voice in answer. Beth got the impression that he was glad of the interruption. “We should be above ground again before dark tomorrow.”

  “So long as it does not involve a boat,” Peg said. “I be game for anything. Anything else.”

  The others shudderingly agreed.

  “If you could keep silent about the very slight wound I seem to have suffered, I would appreciate it,” Neil said quietly to Beth. “The prospect of six more females fussing over me is more than I can bear.”

  “I am not fussing over you.” Her brows snapped together. To her surprise, he handed her a candle, and she realized that he must have retrieved it from his pocket. “But your injury is certainly yours to reveal. Or not.”

  “Thank you. Pray hold still.”

  A spark flared in the darkness, and he used it to light the candle. She realized that he’d kept the flint and steel from the castle in his pocket, too.

  “Praise be! A light!”

  “Me feet feel like dead mackerels. Could we be ’avin’ a fire while we rest, d’ye think?”

  “And what would we make it with?”

  “Driftwood? Won’t there be some hereabouts?”

  “Wouldn’t the smoke be seen?”

  “We’ll catch our deaths, without.”

  “Better to catch our deaths than to be taken again.”

  “Oh, aye.” They all agreed.

  While this conversation was going on, Neil touched another taper to the one Beth held. The wick caught. This candle, the one that he had used previously, she thought, he kept himself.

  “There’s another chamber beyond this one. It once held firewood, and lanterns, and trunks containing things such as changes of clothing and blankets, as well as other necessities. In case someone, for whatever reason, should wish to pass the night, or several nights.”

  Tucking his boots under his arm, he stood up. Even with him in his stocking feet, her head just cleared the top of his shoulder, Beth realized. His height alone was enough to make him intimidating, to say nothing of his broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped build, or the steely muscularity of his body, or the sudden icy opaqueness that could drop over his eyes like a curtain when he was displeased—or the fact that he had just killed seven men without a qualm, and had broken into her brother-in-law’s house besides. As clearly dangerous as he was darkly handsome, he was the kind of man that any female in her right mind should be at pains to avoid. But she wasn’t afraid of him, not in the least, and he didn’t intimidate her either. As surprising as it was, there existed a kind of affinity between them that made her feel almost comfortable in his company.

  “Almost” being the operative word.

  “It served as a hideout, in fact,” Beth said, for his ears alone.

  “Possibly.” As they started to move toward the others, he glanced down at her. “We must just hope it is empty tonight.”

  “No doubt you could deal with whoever is in there if it isn’t,” she replied. “Just as handily as you dispatched all those men back there in the castle.”

  “Just as handily as I killed them, you mean.” His voice turned silky as he faced the subject she skirted around. “But had I not, I would be dead now and your fate would be something that I am sure you would rather not contemplate.”

  As they passed them, the others got to their feet and, talking amongst themselves, fell in behind them in a ragged procession.

  “That is very true,” Beth admitted. “And once again I thank you for the rescue. But . . . ”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “Again with one of those troubled ‘but’s of yours. What is it?”

  “You seem extremely skilled at killing.”

  “I am skilled at any number of things.”

  Out of nowhere, Beth remembered the kiss he had pressed on her. His lips had been warm and firm, and in retrospect really quite expert. Was that, perhaps, another of the things he considered himself skilled at? The thought was so bothersome that she was once again temporarily silenced.

  A breath of fresh air made his candle flicker, and he put up a hand to shield it. The whisper of it on her face promised that somewhere ahead of them was indeed access to the outside. Shielding her own candle and lifting it high, Beth observed that they had reached another fissure in the granite wall of the cave. This one served as a door into an adjoining chamber, she saw as she followed him through it. Irregularly shaped, festooned in shadowy darkness, which the flickering candlelight barely penetrated, it had stalactites and stalagmites reaching toward each other like the teeth of a feral cat. The ceiling was lower and more rounded than the soaring cathedral peaks of the chamber they had just left. Shelves of flat stone that reminded her of agricultural terraces ascended partway up the walls. The ground was stone, worn smooth and almost shiny by the passage of many feet over the years. Trunks and barrels and stacks of firewood, amongst other miscellaneous items, were piled against one wall. Deep in the gloom at the far end of the chamber, the glint of moving water caught Beth’s gaze.

  “Is that freshwater?” she asked, for the stickiness of drying salt on her skin had already begun to bother her.

  “A spring-fed stream. ’Tis safe to drink. And if—just if, mind you—I should be insensible when the time comes, you may follow it all the way out.”

  That made her laugh. “I will remember.”

  Then the others joined them, and for some time afterward they were occupied with the minutiae of setting up a makeshift camp.

  By the time a fire had been built, a barrier consisting of the domino and Neil’s greatcoat had been strung between stalagmites to protect the women’s privacy, and they had stripped to the skin, rinsed out their clothes, and bathed, Beth was exhausted. It did not help to reflect that she had now been missing from her home for above three days, and her family would be frantic with anxiety even as they searched for her. Dwelling on the possibility of ruin paid even less toll, so with some effort she dismissed both from her mind. She was snuggled in a rough wool blanket over a man’s too-large shirt, which was the only piece of dry clothing she had managed to secure for herself when the contents of the trunks, which contained very few garments and all of them men’s, were parceled out. With her clothes steaming on rocks near the fire along with everyone else’s, and her shoes filled with hot rocks and placed rather closer to the blazing embers in the probably vain hope that they would dry by the time she had to put them back on, she was seated on a stone shelf raking her fingers through her hair, which was loose and wet and curling sadly as it dried, when Peg, who sat beside her, nudged her with an elbow.

  “A right baggage that one is and no mistake.” Peg inclined her head toward Dolly, who was wrapped like the rest in a blanket and stood with her back to them at the makeshift barrier. From her posture, it was clear that she was peeping at something beyond it. “I’ve little doubt what she be lookin’ at.”

  “Ogling ’is worship, is she?” Sitting on the ground nearby, swathed to her chin in a blanket as she pulled on the pair of mismatched wool stockings she had claimed as her share of the booty from the trunks, Mary shook her head. “Well, she’ll catch cold at that. ’Tis plain as the nose on your face that ’e wants no part of ’er. ’E only ’as eyes for miss.”

  “Beth,” Beth corrected automatically, frowning as Dolly was joined by Nan. Both peeked around the barrie
r and giggled softly. “And he does not have ‘eyes’ for me, Mary. It is just that we were acquainted before.”

  Mary made a skeptical sound.

  “He be a fine figger of a man,” Peg said. “But he gives me the shivers, and not in a good way. His eyes be—be cold.”

  Although she was conscious of a strong desire to, Beth could not in good conscience argue with that. She had encountered that deadly look of his herself, more than once. Fortunately, it never lasted long.

  She started to say as much, only to break off as Dolly and Nan, wide-eyed and giggling still, turned and fled toward them.

  “He saw us! Oh, my!”

  “’Twas because you would laugh so!”

  “Mayhap you ought to go round there and offer to help him.” Nan plopped down on the ledge beside Jane and Alyce, who shared a blanket and sat next to Peg. Dolly stopped before them, glancing around in indecision.

  “Do you think I should?”

  “He’d be positively grateful for an extra hand, I should think.”

  “An extra hand to do what?” Beth asked.

  “He must have an injury, don’t you know, because he’s pouring that bottle of spirits he took from the trunk over his back. Why else would he do that, but to clean out a cut or some such?” Dolly giggled again. “Unless he likes to bathe in spirits.”

  “That be about as likely as ’im wantin’ your ’elp,” Mary muttered.

  “Oh, you should have seen.” Ignoring that, rolling her eyes around at the rest of them, Dolly fanned her face with her hand. “La, I’m still all atwitter.”

  “From what?” Alyce inquired, a little wide-eyed.

  “He’s unclothed to the waist. All those muscles . . . ” She pretended to swoon. “I just adore a well set-up man.”

  “Probably he’ll be wanting to bandage that injury up, next.” Nan gave her a sly smile. “That’s where he could use the extra hand, you see.”

  “If either of ye ’ad the sense the good Lord gave a goose, ye’d leave ’is worship alone,” Mary warned. “Bein’ that ’e seems not best pleased with yer company anyway. Or any of ours, for that matter.”

  “If he upped and left us,” Peg added, “we’d be properly in the suds.”

  “But what if he’s hurt sore?” Jane, who’d been silent until now, looked frightened. “What if he’s dying? What would we do then?”

  That was the question that had been teasing Beth. Alone amongst them, she knew that he had been shot. Given that, and the weakness he had exhibited when he’d sat so abruptly on the rock, and what Dolly and Nan had just seen, the possibility that he might be seriously injured was more likely than the rest of them knew.

  “I’ll check on him,” she said, standing up.

  “Why should you?” Dolly frowned at her, her face a study in affront. “Why should I not be the one to go?”

  “’Cause ’e’ll send you away with a flea in your ear,” Mary told her flatly. “Miss should go.”

  Except for Nan, the others nodded agreement.

  “I am going.” Beth’s tone brooked no disagreement, and though Dolly pulled a sour face, there was none. Barefoot, her steps silent on the smooth stone, she approached the strung-up garments that separated the chamber into two distinct areas. He’d built a fire on his side, too, and the cave was almost warm as a result. The light from the blaze limned the makeshift barrier in orange. As she reached it, her courage wavered, knocked a little askew by the thought that she had no way of knowing what he might be doing, or just how indecent he really was.

  Conscious of the weight of the others’ eyes on her back, she stopped just this side of the barrier.

  “Neil,” she called, though his name felt strange on her tongue. Still, she had nothing else to call him, “housebreaker” being clearly ineligible. “’Tis Beth. I need to talk to you, if you please.”

  She waited. Nothing. No reply.

  “Neil?”

  Still nothing.

  Dear Lord, has he fainted? Has he died?

  With a quick glance back at the others—Mary made encouraging motions, while Dolly still frowned—she peered around the barrier.

  And saw a small fire burning near one of the tiered shelves, and deep shadows doing a sinister dance across the walls and ceiling. His white shirt and cravat were in plain view, hung from a stalagmite near the fire, and his black frock coat and waistcoat adorned more stalagmites nearby. Then she saw his stockings, and his pantaloons, hung out to dry like the rest. Amongst other items, he’d taken some breeches from one of the trunks, she recalled, and the memory helped quiet the dismaying thought that he might be completely nude even as it occurred.

  But he was nowhere to be seen.

  Her heart beat a little faster.

  “Neil?” she tried once more. When there was still no answer, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and stepped around the barricade.

  Chapter Sixteen

  BETH WAS ONLY A FEW PACES into her search when she saw him. For a moment she stopped, halted in her tracks by the sight of so much bare male skin. His lack of clothing, combined with his dazzling good looks, was unsettling in the extreme. Her first impulse was to turn back at once and leave him to his fate.

  Don’t be a fool, she scolded herself, and pressed on.

  “Neil?”

  He didn’t so much as twitch. Fortunately, she realized as she drew closer, he did not appear to be dead. Wearing only his boots and the breeches he had scavenged from the trunks, he was obviously breathing. He sat on one of the terrace-like shelves in an alcove area that was not visible from the barricade. Probably, she thought, he had moved when he realized he was being spied on by Dolly and Nan. He leaned against the wall, his long legs stretched out before him, his head tipped back against hard stone, his black hair, loosed now from the ribbon in which it had been confined, hanging in waves to his shoulders, his eyes closed. Despite his natural swarthiness and the stubble that darkened his cheeks and jaw, his face seemed pale. His arms lay limply at his sides. There was no expression, absolutely none at all, on his face that she could discern.

  He has fainted, she thought with a thrill of alarm, and hurried to his side.

  “Neil?” Even as she said his name and tentatively laid her hand on a warm, smooth-skinned, hard-muscled upper arm that felt so disconcertingly male that she drew back immediately, she took in more details. As Dolly and Nan had said, he was in possession of a bottle of spirits, and he smelled of them. The squat glass bottle was open, half empty, and sat on the stone beside him. A battered brass dish with water and a crumpled bit of rag in it was nearby. His left hand gripped a candle that, as evidenced by the wisp of smoke wafting from the wick, had been recently snuffed. The smell of burning was strong, stronger even than the scent of alcohol. It was difficult to look at his nakedness, at his wide bare shoulders and broad chest with its wedge of curling black hair, at his muscular arms, without flinching or turning away out of modesty. But look she did, and with a gathering frown, too, because in that first comprehensive glance she saw something that should not have been there: a black sear mark on his flesh in the general vicinity of where she would expect the wound to be. A closer inspection revealed that in its center was a round hole sealed with darkened congealed blood.

  Beth was just registering what that meant when he opened his eyes and looked at her.

  “What do you want?” His tone was disagreeable. His eyes were narrowed. His mouth and jaw were tight.

  Too conscious of having just touched his bare skin, she folded her arms protectively across her chest. The knowledge that the blanket, which she wore draped over her shoulders, concealed the extent of her considerable deshabille from his view was strengthening.

  “I thought you might need help.”

  “I don’t.”

  Her gaze dropped to the blackened wound, which was high in his upper right chest. “That is no mere flesh wound.”

  “And what would you know of bullet wounds, my girl?”

  “I know en
ough to know that a hole like that means a bullet went into your chest.”

  “And came out my back again, missing all vital organs on the way. I’ll live, never fear.”

  “You relieve my mind,” Beth said politely. “You cleaned it with alcohol and cauterized it with the flame from the candle, didn’t you?”

  “The one prevents infection, the other stops bleeding.”

  “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

  “Upon occasion.”

  “Are you in pain?”

  “Nothing to speak of.”

  But the shadow in his eyes, and the continued tightness of his mouth and jaw, belied his words. There were smears of blood on his chest and down his side, she saw, and since he had bathed in the stream before turning that section of the cave over to the women, she knew they had to be of extremely recent origin. Then she realized that some of the blood she was seeing on his side was scarlet and fresh, and that it was trickling down from the exit wound in his back.

  “Your back is still bleeding.”

  “I’m aware of it.”

  From the position of the wound, she didn’t see how he was going to be able to cauterize the hole in his back himself, although from Dolly’s description he had already poured spirits over it. And if he was to continue without sickening or weakening from blood loss, cauterization was clearly what was needed.

  “It will be difficult for you to reach. You’d best let me do it.”

  His eyebrows lifted as he looked at her skeptically. “You? Hold a flaming candle to the hole in my back? No, I thank you.”

  “You cannot reach it yourself.”

  “I told you, I need no ministering angel.”

  Her brows snapped together. “Now who is being foolish beyond permission? And it is nothing but folly when stupid male pride and mule-headed stubbornness combine to prevent you from allowing me to do something that obviously needs to be done.”

  “I should perhaps take this opportunity to tell you that I find managing females particularly unattractive.”